Ron Judd's Olympics Insider

Ron Judd, an Olympics junkie and Seattle Times columnist who has covered Olympic sports since 1997, will use this space to serve up news and opinion on the Summer and Winter Games -- also inviting you to chime in on Planet Earth's biggest get-together.

Games organizers in Vancouver today announced big new efforts to cut down on faux Vancouver 2010 merchandise and fake tickets, through innovative methods including the deployment of "secret shoppers" looking to buy counterfeit goods or scalped or fake tickets. It's an effort launched by most host cities a year or two before the Games, and it's easy to see why: big money is at stake.

Vancouver Organizing Committee officials say it's easy to check your Vancouver 2010 merchandise's authenticity by its official hologram seal (is it really so difficult for counterfeiters to fake those, too?) But we've got a few tips of our own on spotting faux Oly goods.

Telltale signs your Vancouver 2010 souvenir might be fake:

-- Your statue of Games emblem Ilanaaq the Inukshuk has Andy Rooney eyebrows.

-- The Canadian flag sticker on the bottom bears a fig leaf, not maple.

-- You hold it above your head down on Robson Street for more than an hour, and not a single protestor bothers to lob a paint-filled balloon at it.